Find your ancestors in Bury Union Workhouse (Jericho Institution) Admission Registers

What can these records tell me?

There are over 16,000 transcripts in this record set covering the time period from 1846 to 1907. While the amount of available information varies, most transcripts include the following:

• First name(s)
• Last name
• Birth year and date
• Parish
• Occupation
• Religion
• Admission year
• Admission day
• Admission month
• Cause

Discover more about these records

Bury's first workhouse, also known as the Redvales workhouse, was built in 1775 in Bury, Lancashire. In a parliamentary report from 1777, the town of Bury was listed as having a workhouse with accommodation for 50 inmates. It was renamed the Jericho Institution in 1929, and by 1948 it became the Fairfield Hospital.

Note that some transcripts refer to children that were admitted to the workhouse, such as Margaret Anderson, who was born in 1868 and entered the workhouse on 11 July 1877. She was admitted with her mother, Mary, her two sisters, Mary Elizabeth and Catherine, and her newborn baby brother, John. Mary Elizabeth was born in 1871, Catherine in 1873, and John in 1877. As John’s cause for admission is listed as “birth” and his admission date is recorded as 27 July 1877, after his mother was admitted, we can infer that he was born in the workhouse. The cause of their admission is made clear under their mother’s record: her husband had absconded. The records also reveal that they came from the parish of Heap, were Catholics, and that Mary was a factory worker. By searching for Margaret in our Bury Workhouse Discharge Registers, we learn that the five of them were only at the workhouse till 24 August of the same year.

These records were sourced from the Greater Manchester County Record Office.